Of all the strange digital twists in the last few years, the discovery by some P2P developers and music labels that they didn’t have to keep fighting “The Ware Of The Roses” ranks right up there. That they were finding ways to work together while Grokster made its way through the U.S. Supreme Court takes it up another notch. Take this comment from RIAA CEO Mitch Bainwol to CNET News.com: “We said for a long time, and no one believed us, that we were serious that peer to peer could play a role in the distribution of music … Our beef was not with the technology but with the people who wanted to use our products as start-up capital.”
With legit P2P service Mashboxx scheduled for a mid-September launch, News.com’s John Borland looks over the landscape and the roles played by Sony BMG CEO Andy Lack and former Grokster exec Wayne Rosso in getting this far.
Will it work? Depends on your definition of success. If the definition is having legal P2P hit the heights of illegal P2P, probably not. If they can make money with a smaller legit crowd, probably so.
Subscriber content
?
Subscriber content comes from Gigaom Research, bridging the gap between breaking news and long-tail research. Visit any of our reports to learn more and subscribe.
Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement
Comments have been disabled for this post